I didn't want to go back to the shrine.
Every part of my body screamed against it.
But the scroll in my pocket burned like a fever, and Nok's voice haunted me with each step.
> "You carry a name that wasn't born."
> "You shine with stolen breath."
> "If you don't bury it, the god will come for the breath in your lungs."
---
The jungle had changed again.
The trees pressed tighter.
The path narrowed.
The soil beneath my feet pulsed with warmth, like something below was sleeping just beneath the surface.
Waiting to wake.
I didn't use my flashlight.
Didn't need to.
The shrine ahead glowed on its own now.
Faint.
Sickly.
A red light that breathed.
---
It was still wrapped in rope.
Still rotting.
But something had been added since I last came.
Teeth.
Dozens of them, strung like charms around the edges.
Small.
Human.
Children's.
Each one cracked, yellow, humming faintly with a vibration I could feel in my bones.
---
I stepped into the clearing and unrolled the scroll.
The ink shimmered.
Even in the dark.
My name—Anya Chaiyawan—was written there.
But beneath it, almost invisible until I tilted it just right, was another name, in old, looping Thai:
> "The girl who was never mourned."
---
That was her.
The one I saw under the banyan.
The soul that was emptied.
The vessel my mother used to bring me into this world.
---
I knelt at the base of the shrine.
And I dug.
With my bare hands.
Through dirt.
Through roots.
Through soft things that squirmed and hissed beneath the surface.
And there—buried less than a foot deep—I found it.
A jar.
Round. Sealed with wax.
And bound with black string and something thicker.
Hair.
---
The moment I touched it, I felt something move beneath my skin.
A crawling.
A stirring.
Like my blood had begun to boil.
Like someone else was watching me from the inside out.
---
I pulled the jar free and sat back on my heels.
It was heavier than it looked.
Inside, I could hear something rattle.
Not like a coin.
Not like a tooth.
Like a voice.
Trying to form.
---
I broke the seal.
The wax cracked like bone.
The hair fell away like dead grass.
And the moment I opened it—
I saw it.
---
A tongue.
Small.
Preserved in ash and oil.
Wrapped in a name scroll that had turned dark with age.
And when I touched the edge of the paper—
The whispering started again.
But this time… inside my head.
---
> "You took her breath."
> "You used her voice."
> "You wear her bones."
---
I screamed and threw the jar, but it didn't break.
It simply rolled to the edge of the shrine… and stopped.
As if something invisible had caught it.
Held it.
Welcomed it back.
---
And then… he appeared.
---
Not from the trees.
Not from the shadows.
But from the earth itself.
A figure rising between the roots.
Tall.
Pale.
Wearing nothing but red cloth and a necklace of jaws.
Not skulls.
Just jaws.
Upper and lower, strung together with twine, clicking with every step he took.
---
His face was blank.
Not faceless.
Just… wrong.
Too smooth.
Eyes too wide.
Mouth too narrow.
Skin that flickered like smoke when I tried to focus.
And his voice—
Oh god, his voice—
It didn't come from his throat.
It came from all around me.
---
> "You carry what is owed."
> "You wear what was not given freely."
> "You speak with a tongue borrowed from death."
---
I tried to speak.
Tried to explain.
Tried to scream—
But my mouth refused to move.
My jaw locked.
My throat tightened.
Blood dripped from my nose.
The same way it had that night in my mother's house.
---
He stepped closer.
Kneeling.
And placed one long, wet finger to my forehead.
The moment he touched me, I saw her again.
The girl from under the tree.
Only now… I saw her face.
She looked like me.
Only… younger.
Afraid.
Buried.
---
And then I saw my mother.
Crying.
Holding something in her arms.
Whispering words into a bowl of water while a monk chanted over a flame.
Pouring ashes into the shrine.
Binding my birth with a name that didn't belong to me.
---
When I came to, I was lying in the dirt.
The jar was gone.
The shrine… silent.
But the scroll in my pocket had changed.
The name Anya had been crossed out.
And beneath it, in blood-red ink:
> "Mourn her. Or take her place."